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The Pause Bug
The pause bug was a game design flaw present in versions of the game up until the 21st of November 2013, which could be exploited in various ways to allow faster completion of some levels. Description of the Bug Pressing pause in early versions of the game failed to stop certain sprites from completing their animations. When the game was unpaused, the impact was as if the sprite animation had happened instantly, rather than taking its usual time. Exploiting the Bug The pause bug could be exploited as follows: 'Clouds' Clouds could be made to vaporize instantly by touching them, pausing, allowing the cloud to evaporate, then unpausing. This allowed you to: *Pass through clouds more quickly when they were acting as a barrier (e.g. Above All, Ice Tubes) *Have Boom fall partially through a cloud then catch the edge of another cloud in order to get a bounce up (e.g. Cloudsurfer) *Jump *through* curved clouds and cloud loops by making them disappear as Boom was halfway round (e.g. Above All) 'Sandstone' Sandstone could be made to vaporize instantly by touching it, pausing, allowing the stone to crumble, then unpausing. This allowed you to: *Pass through sandstone quickly when it was acting as a barrier (e.g. King's Chamber, Tomb Raid, Eye of Ra) *Change the angle of a jump by having the sandstone edge disappear as Boom was nearing its edge (e.g. Spring Island) *Have Boom fall partially through a sandstone track then catch the edge of another piece in order to get a bounce up (e.g. Golden Gate) *Jump *through* curved sandstone track by making it disappear as Boom was halfway round it (e.g. Break Out, Dusty Trails) 'Bombs' Bombs could be made to explode early by touching them, pausing, allowing the bomb to explode, then unpausing. This allowed you to: *Clear bombs from your path so you didn't have to wait for them (e.g. Demining) *Make a bomb explode when you were closer to it than you would otherwise be, giving you a stronger push (e.g. Ninja, The Pier, Crusher) Other bugs related to the pause bug Was the structural crashing on Above All a pause bug thing? Anyone care to explain the bug at the start of Trigger Happy? More information The exploit was in use from early June 2013 and by August 2013 was generally used by at least one player in every world cup where it made a difference. The developers became aware of the exploit in July or August 2013 but were unable to identfy the cause of it. Various filters were added to the game to identify players using the exploit and separate them out into a dedicated group for the world cup to make the world cup fairer for everyone. These separate players were then effectively trapped in a group competing against each other (as opposed the usual random groupings of the world cup). This is one reason why there are many players of Boom! who have high world cup win scores, but who are not ever seen in the 'public' world cup. The game was subsequently updated in November 2013, version 1.4.4, to remove the bug. According to the developers, there are a number of players who have still not updated their copies of Boom! and do not therefore have the latest features available to them. Category:Bugs